


no matter what you do, i'll still be there for you

by eynn



Series: i can't go back and lose it all [21]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Asexual CC-1004 | Gree, Asexual Luminara Unduli, Fix-It, Found Family, Gen, Nobody Dies, Post-Order 66, Trans CC-1004 | Gree, shaak ti is the best mom, sith!jedi order
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:54:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23826418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eynn/pseuds/eynn
Summary: When Shaak Ti opens her eyes, she finds two of her children lying beside her, one on each side of her.She smiles. It’s not unusual; in fact, she hasn’t been alone unless she requests to be since the fight with Sidious. What is unusual is which of her children are with her.
Relationships: CC-1004 | Gree/Luminara Unduli, Plo Koon & Shaak Ti, Shaak Ti & CC-1004 | Gree, Shaak Ti & CC-2224 | Cody, Shaak Ti & Clone Troopers
Series: i can't go back and lose it all [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1658362
Comments: 27
Kudos: 699





	no matter what you do, i'll still be there for you

When Shaak Ti opens her eyes, she finds two of her children lying beside her, one on each side of her.

She smiles. It’s not unusual; in fact, she hasn’t been alone unless she requests to be since the fight with Sidious. What is unusual is which of her children are with her.

Cody, self-sufficient, independent, calm, steady Cody, is rolled over almost completely, his face buried in her shoulder, clutching her arm to him like it’s a plushie to hug, careful as always of her injuries. One of his hands is wrapped around one of her montrals and she can feel his unhappiness and nervousness in the Force; it’s practically screaming at her.

Gree is on her other side, on his back with one arm across his eyes and the other holding hers. It’s not a tight grip, but it’s hard enough for her to tell that he’s very, very stressed about something.

She smiles. Even now, when they are grown ( _oh, but they’re not grown, they’re still so young, too young,_ her heart whispers sadly) they still come to her for reassurance and comfort when they are at their lowest. Even when she’s hurt and not able to be the strength she always tried to be for them, they still find some sort of reassurance just in her presence.

Now, which one of them to deal with first?

Gree seems to be the most alert, so she decides to start with him.

Shaak squeezes his hand gently and turns her head to him as he startles, his eyes flying open as his arm comes down. He pushes himself up on one elbow and looks down at her, waves of worry and nervousness pouring off of him.

“Relax, ad’ika,” she says. “You’re not hurting me. What’s wrong?”

He settles down again, some of the tension easing out of his jaw. She pushes the button with the Force to raise the head of her bed a little. Cody rubs his face against her shoulder and grumbles, but he doesn’t stir.

“He hasn’t really slept for a while,” Gree says, glancing over at his brother. “He’s really, really worried about his – about General Kenobi, sir.”

Shaak rubs his hand. “I’m just Shaak, Gree. Or buir, if you like.”

He ducks his head but he smiles at her.

“And now, what’s wrong, Gree? With you, not with Cody.”

“Nothing,” he says, very unconvincingly.

She pulls her hand away from his and panic spikes through the Force before she moves it up to wrap around his shoulders and pull him closer into her. “Gree,” she murmurs against his head. “Tell me. I raised you from a tiny child who could barely walk, verd’ika. There is nothing you can do that will make me turn away from you.”

He tenses again.

“I can feel your fear, I’m not looking into your head.”

“I –”

“Mmmm?” she says encouragingly. He’s shaking a little, breath coming quick and shallow.

“IthinkI’mactuallyagirlandItoldLumi—GeneralUnduliandshehasn’tlookedatmesince.”

She catches about every fifth word. “What is wrong between you and Luminara?”

“She doesn’t want me now,” he says, burying his head into her shoulder so that now she has two distraught children clinging to her. “She hates me.”

“And why would she have cause to?”

“I’m a girl!”

 _Oh_. A delighted smile slowly spreads across her face and she holds him closer. “Oh, Gree! That’s wonderful.”

“It’s not! She’s my _wife_ and I love her more than anything in the _world_ and now I’ve gone and ruined it all by not being – not being right.”

“There is nothing at all wrong with being a girl, Gree.”

“But I’m not! But at the same time I am and I don’t know how to –”

Shaak holds him as he sniffles into her tunic, his – her – misery and confusion swirling around her. It feels wrong, having one of her children’s bright lights smothered by this self-hatred.

“What do you want to know how to do?”

“I want to wear pretty things and do what I want to without having to always be up to the standard. I want to be able to fight the way I want to and not have to just be part of the machine. I hate having to cut my hair short and always wear trousers and I don’t feel like this body actually fits me and I hate being called a man and I don’t like being called her husband, I want to be her wife. I don’t want to be the perfect soldier they made me. I want to live.”

“How much of this did you tell Luminara?”

“Most of it,” she says miserably, voice muffled. “She just stared at me and blinked a lot and then she walked away and I can’t even feel her anymore, she’s hiding from me.”

Shaak sighs. Whatever Luminara is doing, she’s being an idiot.

“If she hated you, she would have told you,” she reminds her. “Luminara is nothing if not honest. I don’t know why she would block you out – when did you bond with her?”

“A few months after the second Geonosis campaign,” she says. “She was worried about me, and she didn’t want that kind of thing happening again.”

Shaak sighs again. If they’ve been bonded for so long it’s even worse for her to be suddenly shutting her out. “Do you want me there when you talk to her again?”

Gree cringes. “She doesn’t want to see me.”

“She’s going to see you, and explain herself, or I will know the reason why,” Shaak says firmly.

Gree is startled into looking up. “You’re not – You don’t think it’s my fault?” she says, her voice small.

“Of course not! You did nothing to hurt her, nothing that warrants closing down your bond so completely without an explanation. Being honest with her is not something for her to punish.”

Gree seems to be having some sort of epiphany.

“But do you want me to be there with you when you talk to her, or would you rather be alone?”

“I want you with me,” she says. “But I don’t want to talk right now. I can’t. I can’t –”

“That’s all right, ner’dalaika. When you can, just tell me, and we will face this together.”

Gree settles down again, still sniffling, clinging to Shaak. “Thank you, buir,” she whispers. “Thank you so much.”

~

Shaak is a little worried about Cody by the time she’s gotten Luminara to come see her. He hasn’t so much as stirred the entire time she’s been awake, which has been at least an hour. None of her children are heavy sleepers, never were even as infants, and many different people have come in and out, talking to her and touching her. He should have at least woken a few times to check his surroundings.

Gree is still insisting that he’s fine, just tired, and she knows that as much as she can sense about them, they will always know more about each other. Especially since this strange new ability of theirs to communicate in their heads, and because Gree and Cody are batchmates and have lived together literally their entire lives.

After she gets this business with Luminara sorted out, she’s going to have pull rank as their mother and get Kix to tell her exactly what’s going on with Obi-Wan. She has a sinking feeling that not all of Cody’s problems are coming from him.

And she’d thought that sorting out their emotional problems when they were cadets had been a challenge. Now she’s apparently about to become the mother-in-law of half of her colleagues as well.

At least she can share the work with Plo.

Luminara enters her room with her usual serenity, head held high and looking unruffled.

Gree flinches slightly where she is sitting on a chair next to Shaak, still holding on to her, this time with her hand clutching the tip of one of her montrals, one of her favorite places to grab since she was tiny.

Now that she knows the clones as whole are Force-sensitive, she wonders if that has something to do with the way they all seemed to instinctively know how hard they could grab them and also their tendency to do just that when they were stressed. Her montrals let her echolocate, true, but their main sense was through the Force.

“Luminara,” Shaak says, motioning for her to sit on the visitors’ chair at the foot of her bed. She shifts up a little higher and fixes her fellow Grey Sith with a stern glare. “Why did you block your bond with Gree? Why did you give her no explanation?”

Gree flinches so hard that Luminara leans forward a little, hands going out, when Shaak says the word ‘her’.

“I didn’t mean to concern you,” she says, some of the calm in her face turning into worry. “I just wanted to surprise you.”

Gree swallows, tries to speak, hesitates, and then looks imploringly at Shaak. She pulls her knees up to her chest and puts her head down.

“As I understand it, Gree thinks that you wish to annul your relationship with her because she wants to be your wife instead of your husband,” Shaak says.

Pure shock crosses Luminara’s face for a second before she leaps to her feet and jumps forward to wrap her arms around Gree. “No, no, that’s not it at all, oh Gree, I’m so sorry, that’s not it at all, I never thought of that, I don’t care what you are as long as you’re you, I didn’t –”

She’s abruptly cut off as Gree slides off the chair to stand up and return her embrace, squeezing her so tightly that Shaak can hear her surprised huff as the breath is forced out of her.

Sometimes they all forget just how strong her children are.

When several seconds go by and Gree shows no sign of letting go, she reaches out with the Force and tugs on her shoulder.

“Let her breathe, Gree,” she says, and Luminara gasps for air as Gree abruptly releases her.

“Sorry!” Gree squeaks, sounding panicked.

“It’s fine,” Luminara pants. “I’m so sorry about the bond, cyare, I just wanted to get you some things for a surprise and I didn’t want you picking up on how excited I was.”

“Some things?” Shaak asks, when it’s clear that Gree still isn’t going to speak up for herself.

Luminara blushes. “Well, she said she was tired of always having the same clothes when she was off-duty, so I thought I’d get some nice ones, and some jewelry, and then there’s all the things you can do with your hair once it’s long enough, and even though we’re still staying in here I can order things on the holonet and have them brought in and I may have just spent my entire allowance for the last three years but it was worth every credit.”

By about the fourth word Gree has buried her face in Luminara’s neck and is crying softly, so Luminara just pats her back and looks slightly frightened.

“Barriss helped?” she offers. “She’s kept up on what’s fashionable better than I have the last few years.”

“Is she okay with this? With me?” Gree asks into her shoulder.

“Of course she is! Why wouldn’t she be?” Luminara asks with the same incredulity Shaak can remember her using upon learning that Padmé had been shocked to learn that they had sent her wedding gifts. Not for the first time, she wonders at Luminara’s unceasing kindness.

“I don’t know. It’s not – I’m not right, anymore, if the trainers knew they’d decommission me –”

Shaak meets Luminara’s eyes as both of them feel the Dark rise up inside them and their eyes change color, amber for Shaak and a unnatural yellow and red for Luminara.

“You know, once I’m ready to fight again I was thinking of going to Kamino,” Shaak says softly, almost conversationally. “Tipoca City wasn’t built for the Kaminoans. Only the fanatics live there. The ones who accepted the contract.”

Luminara’s fingers, gently stroking through Gree’s hair, are a strange contrast to the anger in her face. “I think I would like to visit there with you,” she says slowly and precisely. “I believe there are some others who would also join us.” She turns her attention back to her wife, and the sickly yellow fades back into a soft amber. _Strange, how the shade isn’t static_ , Shaak thinks. _It seems to vary according to what is fueling our use of the Dark_.

“Then I will never allow a trainer to come near you again,” Luminara whispers. “They will never touch you again. You are my riduur, Gree, and I will let nothing part us.”

~

After Gree, still a little nervous but stubbornly holding Luminara’s hand, has left, Shaak turns her attention to her other upset child. She reaches out with the Force, tapping gently at the honestly quite impressive mental shields Cody has.

He feels tired, but not exhausted enough to explain his surprisingly deep sleep, so she tugs at him until he wakes up. There is something else there as well, and she is worried.  
She keeps herself still as he blinks and raises his head, looking around in confusion. Then his eyes focus on her face and he hides his face in her arm again.

“What’s wrong, Cody?” she asks quietly.

“I – it’s so unhappy, inside. So lonely and cold. He thinks he’s worthless and I don’t know how to fix it.”

“Are you talking about Obi-Wan?”

Cody nods, and his fingers twitch in a restless pattern around her montral. He’s done that ever since he was small. It’s strange, how comforting is it to her that her children are still the same as they were beneath the mask of veteran soldiers they have been forced to wear.

“Do you have a bond with him?”

He nods again.

“How deeply did you go into it, to be able to sense his feelings so clearly?”

“I was in his mindscape. He was trying to run away from himself and he ran to me, in my head, and Buir helped me find him so I could tell him that he needed to put himself back in his own body again.”

Shaak holds back her first instinct, which is to go scream at Obi-Wan for so recklessly endangering her child as well as himself. It wouldn’t help anything and she doubts he did it deliberately, anyway. She rubs circles on Cody’s back instead.

“He got out of my head as soon as he understood what he was doing, but he was so upset before then, it took me ages to get through to him. He kept fighting me when I tried to hold him, be kind to him. He was crying and fighting me and wouldn’t listen and kept saying he was selfish and I couldn’t be real because nobody would waste so much time on him when there were other things to do.”

“And Plo helped you do this?”

At his nod, she sends her little flying droid that Anakin built off to find him. It’s really a useful little thing. She then calls a medic to make sure that he’s fine. Cody grumbles, but Nyx, the medic for Mace’s 91st, glares him into lying still and letting him check him over. She breathes out in relief when he’s perfectly unharmed.

Plo comes only a few minutes later and settles into the chair Gree left behind, looking at her and Cody with equal concern. He’s already falling asleep again, still cuddled up to her arm. Whatever he has gone through in Obi-Wan’s mind, it’s affecting him more than he is letting himself show.

“Cody says that Obi-Wan tried to possess him,” she says bluntly.

Plo nods and sighs. “It was not deliberate,” he argues. “Sidious hurt him badly, and he was taking the only way out of the pain he could find. Force bonds with other Force-sensitives have been nearly impossible for him to form because of Sidious’ manipulations, and his bond with Cody is the only mental contact he’s had with anyone that didn’t hurt since he was a padawan. He was desperate.”

Shaak closes her eyes. “How did we let this happen?”

“There is no time to dwell on that. We must focus on fixing the damage and making sure it cannot happen again.”

“That’s true.” She opens her eyes and looks at her son, who is watching them with one half-open eye. She can feel him drawing her Force presence around himself like a blanket, and once again marvels at the abilities they have somehow kept hidden all this time. “Luminara and I are going to Kamino once I can fight again. Will you come as well?”

Plo looks torn. “I want to. There are still so many cadets we need to save, and the Kaminoans have not stopped creating more. But there is also—”

“Ahsoka,” Shaak finishes, after he stops. “Yes. We can’t forget about her.”

“My Shmi thinks that Sidious’ last words about her means that she is dead.”

Shaak thinks of the bright, lively young girl she knew before the war. “It would kinder to her if she were, rather than a captive,” she agrees quietly. “At least in the Force, she could find peace.”

“I want to _know_ ,” says Plo firmly. “I will not give up on her until I bring her home, alive or dead.”

“And I will be with you after I free my children. My first vow when I Fell was to them, and I cannot abandon them for one person.” Shaak looks at him, begging him to understand. She knows that he loves the vod’e as his own as well as she does.

Plo nods. “I understand, Shaak. I Fell for them too.” His frown turns slightly grim. “And from a purely tactical standpoint, it will be much easier to find little ‘Soka with more troops behind us. But I don’t know if I can live with myself if any of them die to find her.”

“I hate this. I hate how we have been turned into soldiers.”

He puts his hand over hers and their claws gently tap each other. “So do I,” he agrees as they watch Cody sleep, huddled up to her side. “Oh, Shaak, so do I.”


End file.
